Real estate expert: Buyers in Phoenix market uninterested

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, the Phoenix real estate market goes into a hibernation state of sorts.

Historically, the real estate market during the holidays is fairly quiet, as homeowners and prospective buyers put more emphasis on their holiday plans than they do on buying or selling a home. According to Arizona State University Director of Real Estate Michael Orr, this holiday season is no exception.

“(The market) is behaving as expected,” said Orr on his weekly appearance on That Real Estate Show. “Inventory tends to go down from Thanksgiving through Jan. 2.”

The question after Jan. 2 then becomes whether Phoenix’s subdued buyer demand will pick up again.

“Buyers are just not very interested right now,” said Orr. “They seem to have lost interest from the summer onwards. So far, there’s not much sign of them coming back. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of activity until we get to the start of the spring season.”

The “spring season” in real estate starts in late January, according to Orr. By then, Phoenix’s real estate market might be in a state that strongly favors prospective homebuyers. Right now, according to Orr, that is not the case.

“I’m not seeing it as a strong buyers’ market at the moment,” he said. “I’m seeing it as a fairly balanced market, with a just slight edge to buyers.”

Orr also believes a more accurate projection of the Phoenix real estate market is several weeks away.

“There’s not going to be a lot of change over the last few weeks of the year. It’s not going to be until the end of January that things start looking different and who can tell which way (the market) is going to go?”

That’s a question many having been asking over the past few years in Phoenix real estate, and the uncertainty of an answer, at least for the moment, seems to be keeping buyers away.

Listen for more Phoenix real estate news with Realtors Diane Brennan and Rod Lakin on That Real Estate Show Saturdays at 3 p.m. on News/Talk 92.3 KTAR.